


l’appel du vide

by tokyonightskies



Series: WidowReaper Week [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hospitalization, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Identity, Identity Issues, Restraints, Role Reversal, Science Experiments, WidowReaper Week, mentions of lobotomy, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 15:32:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10744560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyonightskies/pseuds/tokyonightskies
Summary: Amélie blinks, startled out of her thoughts by his words. “What are you doing here, Widowmaker?”There’s something ominous about the way he pronounces her assassin alias, the intended inflection distorted by his raspy voice. Like she can’t fool him like she fools the rest of the world. Everyone turned on her after the Swiss headquarters exploded. Branded her a traitor. Widowmaker is a fuck you to every Overwatch official who turned their back on her, her way-out court-martial and into the organization she suspects to be behind the bomb, behind her husband’s death.“Checking in on you, mon chèr,” she says nonchalantly, keeping a straight face, and shifts her weight on her left leg as she spots the blood stains on his pillow.





	l’appel du vide

**Author's Note:**

> WidowReaper Week, day 4. Role Reversal
> 
> attack <-> defense, mercenary <-> assassin, blackwatch/overwatch <-> civilian, talon kidnaps gabriel and amélie voluntarily betrays gérard, etc.

.

Amélie hates the smell of antiseptic.

She walks through the medical facility in a brisk pace, passing by a couple of scientists discussing figures on their clipboards, and pauses momentarily at the door of the break room, glancing at the coffee machine. Whatever thought struck her to a halt, disappears just as quickly and she scoffs, shakes her head and continues onwards. The hallway is overexposed, the white glare of the fluorescent tubes overhead so harsh she squints her eyes. She finds the room Reaper’s staying in to be dark, with the only light coming from the holographic monitors projected around the bed.

They cuffed Reaper to the hospital bed with tough, leather straps. Amélie raises an eyebrow. _So, Talon’s afraid of their pet super soldier,_ she thinks, _interesting._

She’s seen firsthand what he’s capable of on the battlefield and wonders what use the binds have when he could just as easily slip out of them in wisps of smoke and shadow. His heart rate peaks for a fraction of a second when she enters the room. Reaper’s face transmutes in a canvas of shadows and eyes for the entire time it takes her to cross the distance between the door and the bed. He’s an abyss and he’s staring back.

There’s no chair; in fact, there’s hardly any furniture in the room at all, and the rectangular mirror on the right wall doesn’t look much like a mirror to the trained eye. Amélie lingers at the foot of the bed before coming to stand closer.

His expression contorts into a grimace; he dislikes being looked down upon. She knew him as Gabriel Reyes once, before Talon sank its claws into him and forced him to go rogue, killing the head of Overwatch’ counterterrorism division. The details of his transformation process are classified but Amélie pieced together enough: Talon’s scientists tried to recreate the U.S. military’s super soldier enhancement program with him as their first test subject. As she stares at his grayish skin and inhuman eyes, she knows it’s safe to say the results are _mixed._  

Amélie blinks, startled out of her thoughts by his words. “ _What are you doing here, Widowmaker?_ ”

There’s something ominous about the way he pronounces her assassin alias, the intended inflection distorted by his raspy voice. Like she can’t fool him like she fools the rest of the world. Everyone turned on her after the Swiss headquarters exploded. Branded her a traitor. Widowmaker is a _fuck you_ to every Overwatch official who turned their back on her, her way-out court-martial and into the organization she suspects to be behind the bomb, behind her husband’s death.

“Checking in on you, _mon chèr_ ,” she says nonchalantly, keeping a straight face, and shifts her weight on her left leg as she spots the blood stains on his pillow.

Reaper huffs and cranes his neck—the tendons of his throat stand out, and the bluish light of the heart monitor highlights his collarbones, peeking out above the neckline of the hospital gown. She averts her eyes. Several questions push to the forefront of her mind; what’s the procedure of his reconditioning; how much does he remember; why hasn’t he escaped from the cuffs yet; _how much pain is he in_. His heartrate’s a steady presence in the room.

“We will be working together again… soon,” Amélie says conversationally, trying to gauge his reaction from the corner of her eye.

There’s a dry note of humor in his voice when he croons, _“Let’s win, baby.”_

It’s not the answer she expected and for some reason she begins to laugh. It’s been a long time since she last did. He eyes her curiously and breaks down in a grin, showing off the serrated line between his clenched teeth. Reaper looks pleased with himself. “I didn’t think you knew how to laugh, _Widowmaker_.”

“Talon forgot to put that in my file then,” She remarks with a smirk, quick to turn the tables on him.

Her years in Blackwatch taught her much, how to push past the borders of the principle of reciprocity for example, or how to keep your cool in an unpredictable and dangerous situation. Amélie carefully touches the worn leather cuffs – aware of the sudden tension in his posture, his hawkish gaze – and comments, “These are pretty useless, _n’est-ce pas?_ ”

He tugs on his restraints; the white framework of the hospital bed rattles as metal clanks against metal, a noise that tunes out the steady beeping of the heart monitor. The cuffs clatter against the white railing of the headboard one last time when his hands transmute into wisps of nanobot particles and slip free. Once again, the only sound in the room is Reaper’s heartbeat. He holds his hands up in front of his eyes and moves his fingers.

“ _Useless_ ,” Reaper agrees lowly, watching how the bluish light discolors his skin.

Amélie crosses her arms over her chest, cocks her head to the right; these short, stilted movements give her a few extra seconds to choose her words. “You could’ve done this earlier,” she points out nonchalantly, trying to look uncaring.

His face _falls_ at the realization—the smug expression gets replaced by surprise, then in quick succession: recognition, _panic_ , and finally the stoicism of a man who’s headed to the chopping block—and his heartbeat hammers through the silence of the room in rapid beeps. His reconditioning kicks in and he bristles, willingly putting his hands back in the binds. She knows she caught a glimpse of _Gabriel Reyes_ underneath that grisly surface.

“But I didn’t want to,” Reaper spits vitriol, avoiding her eyes. “I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, _I didn’t want to…_ ” His voice betrays his agitation and parts of his torso shroud into thousands and thousands of particles, forming maws and eyes around the hospital bed.

“ _Reaper_ ,” Amélie whispers urgently, and after throwing a glance at the open doorway, she repeats herself, and then again, more insisting. When he doesn’t show any signs that he hears her, she puts her hand on his arm, ignoring the strange sensation of his bare skin under hers. “ _Reaper, écoutez-moi,”_ she hisses. “ _Calm down.”_

He snaps his head towards her, a wide-eyed stare.

His chest heaves and falls, breath rushes through his nostrils, the beeping of the heart monitor slows down, and the atmosphere changes. Amélie feels _something_ she hasn’t allowed herself to feel in a long, long time. Since the explosion, she’s only felt indifference and an ice-cold anger, and in lesser moments when she was wondering _what the fuck she was doing_ , she carried a mix of loneliness, self-loathing and helplessness within her heart. Amélie holds his gaze as she trails her fingertips over his wrist – he shivers under her honest touch – over the leather cuff, down to his open palm.

Reaper clenches his hand and hooks his fingers with hers, mashes them together like puzzle pieces that don’t fit.

She doesn’t know how much time passes as she stands there, holding his hand, slowly caressing the pad of her thumb over his pinky finger until his breathing evens out. Amélie comes to find he looks less a monster placated and more a man—a man even Talon scientists couldn’t pick to pieces with their nine-inch-long needles, pinned above his eyeballs.

.


End file.
